Move over white, now Gujarat is growing coloured cotton

Thinking of cotton brings to mind images of white, fluffy bolls of fibre which are used to make the clothes that we wear. But some women farmers of Gujarat associated with Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) are set to change this traditional image of cotton.

Around 50 women in three villages situated in Surendranagar, Mehsana and Vadodara districts, respectively, are growing brown cotton in nearly 4.5 bighas of land. These women are more specifically associated with Sewa’s trade felicitation centre (STFC) which has plans of growing blue and green cotton as well. The garments spun from coloured cotton will also be sold under Sewa’s Hansiba brand.

Coloured cotton has the potential to usher in a revolution of sorts as it could make dyeing and printing of cloth obsolete. It could also make fading of cloth a thing of the past because, unlike fabric made from white cotton, the cloth made from coloured cotton is not dyed with synthetic colour.

“It began as an experiment three years back in a small village near Surendranagar,” said Reema Nanavaty, chairman of STFC. “We had received 40 gram of coloured cotton seeds from an organisation in Savar Kundla. We sowed brown cotton in about 1 bigha of land in the village.”

Nanavaty said that after successfully testing the cotton for quality, STFC launched a special clothes collection called, Madhuli, for one of its fashion shows.

The brown cotton being grown on the three farms uses organic farming technology. This is perhaps why the coloured cotton needs much less water than its white cousin. (Incidentally, the white cotton, too, needs only moderate rainfall.) The coloured variety of the fibre is thus ideally suited for Gujarat and other areas of the country where there is not much rain.

Coloured cotton farming has also affected the economy of the villages where it is grown as it is Sewa women who do nearly all the work. They plant and grow the seeds, nurture the saplings, pluck the cotton, and do the deseeding and ginning as well. When the cotton is ready, they hand-spin it into thread and then weave it into fabric using handlooms. They also do the styling of the cloth using different kinds of stitches made popular by rural artisans.

The dresses made from this cloth are then marketed under Hansiba brand.

“We had many doubts, initially, when women farmers in two villages were given coloured cotton seeds,” said Ushaben Solanki, a farmer who has been growing brown cotton. “When the cotton bolls first came out, we used to pry them open to make sure that the colour of the cotton was brown.” Ushaben is also a member of Mahila Sewa Vruksh Utpadak Sahkari Mandli in Surendranagar.

Another woman farmer, Neeruben Senma from Ganeshpura near Mehsana, said that nobody in her village was initially willing to believe that they would have a crop when they first sowed coloured cotton in 1.5 bigha of land at the farm.  “The plants of brown cotton look very different from white cotton,” Neeruben said. “Villagers used to ask us if we had planted tomatoes or ladyfingers.”  She revealed that selecting the right land for cultivation of coloured cotton is vital as one of the key requirements is that there should be no crop of white cotton within 1 km of the plot where coloured cotton is being grown. Having successfully grown brown cotton on its farms, the STFC is now planning to involve more farmers into growing coloured cotton. The trade felicitation centre expects to have around 1.5 kg of seeds from the current brown cotton crop.

“When 2.63 lakh farmers start growing coloured cotton through organic farming, we intend to produce around 500 metre of cloth from it. These clothes will then be the USP of Hansiba brand,” said Nanavaty.